The Dwarf

Cho Se-hui

The Dwarf is a series of linked stories which follow a dwarf and
his family in 1970s South Korea. They involve his attempts to find a
livelihood without joining a circus, the demolition of the family house
in a slum clearance, his children's recruitment into the industrial
proletariat, and their involvement with organised labour. Connected
to this are stories about a scion of an elite family, cramming for
ultra-competitive university entrance exams, failing to find happiness
in sex, and experiencing a rather different introduction to politics.

These stories are often forthrightly political, in a fashion which may
be uncomfortable to Western readers — and which one suspects must have
only just got past the censors. But the directness of Cho Se-hui's
writing is engaging, and his stories are appealing as stories, not just
for their depiction of the human cost of economic growth in one of Asia's
tiger economies.